Movies, music and opinions, OH MY!

Month: August 2016

Let me say upfront that I adore stop-motion animation. I was raised on Aardman Studios and Robot Chicken, so I’ve always admired the dedication and patience of the makers of stop-motion animation. Sadly, because of the advancement of animation technology and how easy it is to do in comparison, stop-motion has become more and more of a rarity in film. But thank god Laika films (Coraline, Paranorman, TheBoxtrolls) is prominent enough to not only keep making movies, but also keep getting better.

Kubo and the Two Strings follows its title character (Art Parkinson), a young boy living in ancient Japan with his mother, playing his magical Shamisen (a three-string guitar) that makes origami paper come to life and perform a story for crowds. It tells the story of Kubo’s father, Hanzo, a legendary samurai who fought great battles but Kubo has never known. It turns out that Kubo’s mother’s family, led by the Moon God Raiden (Ralph Fiennes) and his twin daughters (Rooney Mara), banished Kubo’s mother from the heavens after taking one of Kubo’s eyes as a baby. But the Sisters reach the human world to try to take Kubo’s other eye, so Kubo must look for three items that make up a magical piece of armor in order to fight Raiden. He won’t be alone thanks to the help of a fighting monkey (Charlize Theron) and a former student of Hanzo’s now cursed to appear as a giant beetle (Matthew McConaughey).

On a technical level alone, Kubo is Laika’s finest film to date. The detail and movement of the stop-motion is beautiful and astonishing. Everything from the action scenes to the origami coming to life to even the wind blowing water off the ocean waves is impressive. Since the film doesn’t take place in too many large cities and the need for set design didn’t need to be entirely detailed, the filmmakers took that as an opportunity to add more realism to the minimal world around Kubo. The film doesn’t use Japanese culture stereotypes, instead finds the core meanings of many modern traditions: dreams, family, imagination, and hope. On paper, it’s a fantasy adventure quest with family values (little hints of Indiana Jones thrown in). But the beauty of the animation (not to mention the gorgeous score by Dario Marianelli) makes it feels so much bigger, almost a bit spiritual.

But even if that’s lost on the audience, the fun is front and center thanks to the voice cast. Art Parkinson isn’t playing the wimpy lost orphan, giving Kubo some genuine charisma along with heartfelt emotion. When he takes on the giant worm monster of the Moon King, it’s easy to believe his fearlessness. Theron well-served as Kubo’s Jiminey Cricket, equally effective in giving out wisdom and droll humor. McConaughey is pitch-perfect as the comedic sidekick, somewhat of a pseudo-riff on the macho hero of fantasy stories. Think Captain Qwark of Ratchet & Clank if his intentions were noble and he had amnesia.

Kubo is certainly the most unique animated movie of the year (for kids at least, what with the release of Sausage Party). It’s not just for its great animation, but for a simple story with an inviting universe around it. Fun, free-spirited and open to all who see it despite its specific culture, Kubo is all about telling stories and legends like the right amount pizazz and heart. There’s no need to blink or worry about missing anything, just sit back and watch the wonder unravel.

I feel bad for DC fans, I really do. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to know that all of their beloved superheroes and supervillains are owned by Warner Bros. studios, who’ve have promised to give them a cavalcade of cinematic blockbusters about their childhood icons yet clearly don’t care about them beyond their marketability. Earlier this year, they showed that they can take the infinite potential of putting their two biggest superheroes on the same screen together and destroy it in a way as shocking and horrifying as the Hindenburg crash. Now, a mere five months later, they’ve tried to take some of DC’s most menacing bad guys and throw them together for a one-off romp of dastardly fun…and they couldn’t even do that right.Suicide Squad picks up right where Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice left off (SPOILER ALERT: Superman is dead..maybe..kinda..who cares?) and the US government has immediately gone from mourning the Man of Steel to fearing for the next metahuman attack. Stone cold government agent Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) has a plan: assemble a team of imprisoned psychos with special abilities to take on mission too tough for standard soldiers. Said team includes hitman Deadshot (Will Smith), mentally-unstable crime queen Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), sewer-dwelling monster Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), fire-wielding street gangster Diablo (Jay Hernandez), violent goofball Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), vengeful assassin Katana (Karen Fukuhara), and the master of…um..ropes Slipknot (Adam Beach). Led by Col. Rick Flagg (Joel Kinnaman), they must infiltrate Midway City after one of Waller’s original recruits, the witch Enchantress (Cara Delevingne), goes rogue. But there might be more trouble as Harley’s heartbreaker, The Joker (Jared Leto), is in town looking to reunite with his love.
Whereas Batman v Superman was terrible for having stakes as high as Mt. Everest and blowing it all in the grimmest of fashions, Suicide Squad is bad (not terrible, but bad) because it wastes its own endless possibilities. There are ten characters here ripe for development, and the movie does nearly nothing with them. Sure, Deadshot gets a little daughter for emotional ties, Harley’s got here relationship goals, and Flagg and Enchantress are in a romance (for some reason), but they feel more like motivators for the plot to keep going instead of outlining these characters. Everyone else is nothing but background filler that’s easily expendable. Want proof? Slipknot dies after being in the movie for two scenes…..TWO! The only one who gets the most out of it is Diablo, who gets a tragic backstory of his powers being a gift and curse which is why he’s so reluctant to use them, which doesn’t sound familiar at all (*cough*). On top of poor character and story integration, Suicide Squad also has the misfortune of being a modern WB/DC movie, shot in ugly colors and terrible lighting that make all of these eccentric baddies fade into the muck. It takes a lot of balls to take two of the most colorful villains in comic history and make them underwhelming stencils of their source material, but Suicide Squad pulls it off. There’s also the usual problems: terrible editing, poorly shot action scenes, and a pace so rushed that it’s clear the movie wants to get this all over with as fast as possible.

Now for those DC fanboys who say that this wasn’t made for the average moviegoer and for “fans only,” is this really the story you’re excited for the Suicide Squad to be in: A magical whatever shoots a laser in the sky to unleash something to enslave the world because reasons? Is it a fair trade off for these villains with long history and deep backstory in comics to be completely ignored for the equivalent of a Power Rangers episode? Granted, the comic geek in me is tickled pink to see Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Killer Croc and Captain Boomerang walk into a bar (not a joke) to talk shop, but is that worth two hours and $175 million of Warner Bros. waining movie budget?
And that’s a shame, because everyone involved seems to be having a ball playing bad guy dress up. Smith is back in standard action hero form, Courtney is the most likable he’s ever been in his film career, Hernandez is peaceful moral center of the madness, and Akinnuoye-Agbaje is the tough guy comic relief. I’m sure it’ll delight focus groups and WB’s PR to know that the best performance in the movie are from the ladies. Davis is the baddest of the bunch and she owns every scene she struts into. Fukuhara is deserved of her own movie as she shows brief vulnerability while being the silent killer of the group. And Robbie..holy lord, is this woman a bonafide movie star. She’s the best part of the movie and may be worth the price of admission alone, sinking her lipstick-smeared teeth into the role and punctuating nearly every scene. There’s a genuine glee radiating from her performance, like she’s playing Marilyn Monroe on speed. Hollywood know owes Robbie an IOU for being the lone spark in this dead battery of an action movie. Oh and about Leto’s Joker, how does it feel to know that nearly a year and a half of media hype was all for a minuscule 10-15 minutes of screen time and an even smaller screen presence? Leto feels like an outline of who the Joker is, only the most easily accessible layer of he rabbit’s hole of madness that is the Clown Prince of Crime.

Everyone and everything in Suicide Squad is another victim of WB’s mad dash to play keep up with Marvel studios and the war of the superhero movies. The victim who got it the worst (besides the fans of course) is writer/director David Ayer (Training Day, Fury), who clearly had a vision for this and wanted to make this the twisted middle finger to bright shiny superhero movies it could’ve been. It’s clear his vision was cut and hacked to death because WB is starting to see how deep into their own grave they’ve dug themselves. Now that people are starting to catch on that superhero movies are starting to be more of the same, the genre needs to take a risk in order to survive. A space western with a giant tree and a talking raccoon? Yes. A foul mouthed douchebag in a red suit and a horrible facial complexion? Sure. A group of costumed weirdos saving the world? Been there, done that, whatever.Final Verdict: 1.5 out of 4 stars